Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi says the architect of the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists has been identified and arrested.
Speaking at the fourth “Human Rights and National Security” summit in the capital Tehran on Thursday, Moslehi stated that the recent arrest has dealt a heavy blow to Western intelligence services, and has set off an “uproar” among them.
The Iranian intelligence minister said earlier this week that 20 people were arrested in connection with the murder of Iranian nuclear experts.
Moslehi told reporters the arrests were carried following the identification and busting of two terrorist groups in multiple sting operations across the country.
He also noted that more information about the places where the suspects were detained would be released in the future.
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry on June 14 had announced the capture of the main elements behind the murder of the country’s nuclear scientists.
“The key perpetrators of the assassinations of Majid Shahriari, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan (two of the slain nuclear scientists) and Reza Qashqaei (a driver of one of the scientists) were identified and, in a series of sting operations, were arrested and transferred to detention facilities,” the ministry announced in a statement.
The statement pointed to Iran’s extensive intelligence operations following the assassination of the first Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010 and pointed out that the investigations led to the identification of a number of Israeli intelligence officers and their mercenaries.
Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was targeted on January 11, when an unknown motorcyclist attached a magnetic bomb to his car near a college building of Allameh Tabatabaei University in Tehran. He was immediately killed and his driver, who sustained injuries, died a few hours later in hospital.
Ahmadi Roshan was a Sharif University of Technology chemical engineering graduate and served as the deputy director of marketing at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.
The deadly incident happened after some US presidential hopefuls in November 2011 openly called for conducting covert operations against Iran to stop its nuclear energy program, including the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and carrying out acts of sabotage against the country’s nuclear facilities.
Dariush Rezaeinejad, Professor Majid Shahriari and Professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi are also among the victims of such acts of terror.
On July 23, 2011, unidentified gunmen killed Rezaeinejad outside his house in Tehran.
Rezaeinejad and his wife were on their way to their child’s kindergarten when they were approached by two men on a motorbike. The gunmen called him by name and shot Rezaeinejad, 35, in the neck when he turned around.
On November 29, 2010, Majid Shahriari and Fereydoun Abbasi were targeted by terrorist attacks. Shahriari was killed immediately, but Abbasi, the current director of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, sustained injuries.
